FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Cooperating for Profit

A Fetish Institute Story

Chapter 1: Accepting the Offer

For Asbeoth

By Draconicon

Tabin sighed as he looked over the accounts for his strip club. The numbers coming in didn't leave the stallion feeling good about the future, but there were no immediate solutions to fix it.

He shuffled the papers, the forty-something horse leaning over his desk and rubbing his head in his hands. There had to be something that he could do, but the more that he pored over the papers, the less sure about that he felt.

Tips are going down, expenses are going up, patrons are heading to the classier joints, he thought. Not to mention the 'protection' money from the dealers are petering out...

Tabin wasn't proud of it, but his strip club had been one of the central dealing points for anything from weed to crack to heroin, and they had all paid him a sort of renter/protection fee for the privilege of dealing out of his club. They had been a major source of income for a while, the big reason that the whole place was still in business, and now, they were heading off to greener pastures. Once the clientele started drying up, so did their profits.

Not that he could blame them for moving on. Not when his brother showed up.

He looked out of his office down to the main floor, looking at the Arabian stallion that sat at one of his tables, watching one of the stripper stallions strutting his stuff down a catwalk. Rodden was the only customer that they had at this time of day, and the gun-toting stallion was not exactly encouraging anyone else to come in.

Particularly when there were rumors among the other customers that he was part of law enforcement. The rumors weren't exactly wrong, either; he just wasn't a cop.

Fucking asshole...

Tabin shook his head, trying to look down at the accounts again. At this rate, they would be underwater in a few months, and bankrupt shortly after. The damn club cost too much to keep running, and it was only a matter of time until the only real talents that he had were head-hunted by the other clubs in the area, the equines taken off to serve in different capacities elsewhere.

He tossed the papers away, shaking his head again as he tried to pull some sort of idea out of his ass. There had to be something that he could do, something that would pull more customers in. And that would have to start with getting his brother to leave, and stop coming back every day.

And that meant talking to him.

He hated talking to Rodden. The dark-haired stallion was always a pain in the ass, always hinting at the secrets associated with his job. He kept talking like he had top secret clearance or some shit like that, like he was an agent at the top of the food chain rather than some lackey. At least, Tabin was pretty sure that Rodden was a lackey, some low-level dick that was sent out to make trouble for other people.

But what if he's not?

Well, then things were going to get complicated, particularly as he needed the horse to leave for him to be able to run his business. He just hoped that his little brother hadn't gotten better at fighting since he left home.

Getting to his feet, the horse stretched his arms over his head, walking over to the mirror by his office door. He ran his hands down the sides of his muzzle, smoothing down the red-brown hairs along his face and neck, smoothing the black - well, black and silver, these days - mane back into place, and then pulling his suit a bit tighter around his shoulders. He needed every inch of intimidation for this, and he pulled his tie a bit tighter to make sure that he looked like a proper businessman.

His slacks were already pulled tight, making his sheath that much more obvious, and his balls were outlined in a way that befitted a stallion of his age and size. He pulled his pants up a bit more, making it a bit uncomfortable for himself, but at least it made sure that everything was obvious, everything was clear.

His hooves were already polished, but he debated doing a bit more to make sure that they were shiny. He stopped himself, knowing that he was just delaying now. He had to make this happen.

Stepping out of the office and into the thud-thud-thud of the main room, Tabin circled the catwalk to the stairs at the far end. He walked down, his hand gripping the metal handrail as tight as he could. Rodden had already turned from the dancer to look at him, and the darker-furred stallion was smirking slightly.

You were just waiting for this, you asshole.

He didn't hurry himself up, nor did he do anything to show that he was affected by his brother's smirk. Instead, he just slowed himself down a little bit more, stood a little straighter, and made sure that every step was measured and calm.

The dancer on stage glanced at him for a moment, but Tabin gave him the gesture to keep dancing. The big guy had already dropped from his sheath, nearly ripping his thong off, but that meant that it was all the better for a show.

As the big white stallion turned around, shaking his rounded ass for the audience and showing how his pucker almost ate his thong, Tabin sat down at Rodden's table. The two brothers' eyes met, and Rodden chuckled.

"Glad you finally found time to talk to me."

"I'm only here because you won't leave."

"Well, I did come here to talk to my brother, after all."

"You're scaring off all my business."

"Not my fault that they think I'm a cop."

"Not like you're telling them that you're not."

"Not my fault that you gotta make your money illegally, either. You could have gone into something reputable. Like I did."

"You want to keep pushing that button, or you want to tell me why you're here?"

The dancer kept going in the background, always swaying, always thrusting, showing off every inch of his body. Even with the annoyance in front of him, Tabin could feel his own sheath stirring, his cock pushing up just a bit. If he had been standing, he would have had quite the bulge. Even as it was, he could feel how tight his pants were, how constricting they were getting.

He did his best to ignore it, to keep his eyes on his brother. Some trick was coming, and he needed to be ready for it.

Rodden glanced at the dancer again, then shook his head. For the first time in who knew how long, his smirk dropped off his face, and his brother looked back at him with a small expression of worry.

"Look. I know we've had our ups and downs, but I came here to ask a favor."

"If it's money, forget it."

"Fuck that. I'm here to offer you a chance...and I need you to say yes."

"I thought you were here to ask a favor."

"It's a favor for me, and it'll make life a hell of a lot easier for you, if you say yes."

"...I'm listening."

"You know I'm with the government."

Tabin nodded.

"Well, it's a bit more complicated than that."

"How the hell can it be complicated? Either you're with the government or you're not."

"We're not technically affiliated with them. It's one of those plausible deniability cases; we do what they're not legally allowed to do. You understand?"

"Black ops?"

"Kind of. More behind the scenes for black ops."

"...I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"Maybe. It'll mean money...and probably more, for that matter."

Tabin had always had a feeling for what would do his business good and what wouldn't. The problem was, the feeling for good stuff had been drifting more and more, and it had been more listening to that feeling as to what was the least bad thing he could do. In that, at least, it had always been accurate. Otherwise, his business would have shuttered its doors at good three months back.

But this...this didn't have the bad feeling attached. This had a very, very good feeling coming from it.

Here's hoping I haven't lost my touch, he thought, gesturing for Rodden to continue.

"We're working with the government to track a certain asshole. A mobster named Vadir. Ever heard of him?"

"The dragon that runs the west-side?"

"That's him."

He whistled. That was a big fish. It was an open secret that the green dragon ran every organized bit of criminal activity out of the west side of the city, and he was pushing in on the east side, too. Every politician that wanted to get very far was in bed with him, and most of the ones that were just starting out were courting his attentions, too. There was a constant bidding war for the dragon's influence, and that was just for the official work that he did.

Unofficially, even Tabin had been on his payroll once or twice. The big guy used to come down here to conduct business, and often asked for dancers that were 'willing' to work as whores, as well. Eventually, the dragon had moved on, particularly as the establishment's prestige had gone down, but that didn't mean that payments didn't go out from time to time to keep Vadir happy.

"Going after him...you looking to get shot, little brother?"

"No. I'm looking to bring him in. If we get our hands on him, then we can twist this to a whole different level."

"...And why do you need me?"

"Our information says that he's going to be coming back here in a few weeks, maybe as much as a month from now. Wanting to be here for old time's sake, hold a few meetings with some out of towners."

"What do you want me to do?"

"We need a couple of your dancers to be part of his 'entertainment.'"

"Yeah, well, you're shit out of luck there."

"Why?"

"He doesn't like equines much anymore. The last time he came by, he said that he wasn't going to pay for any more 'entertainment' unless they were dragons."

"...So?"

"I don't have any dragons on staff. This is the Hot Herd, remember? Dragons don't run in a herd."

"No, but...you do have a couple."

"...You mean my sons."

Rodden nodded.

Tabin glared at his brother, his lip pulling back a little to show his teeth. Walter and Edward were his kids, regardless of the adoption. They were his. And now Rodden wanted to put them at risk to...

"They're not even gay. There's no way that they'd go for it," he said, offering the first excuse that popped into his head. "You'll need to find someone else."

"We can fix that."

"We? Wait, what the hell are you talking about?"

"My employers. Trust me, there's ways that they can fix anything, make anyone anything that they need to be."

"...You're shitting me."

"Trust me. I wouldn't do something like that in this situation."

"Then what the hell are you doing? What the hell are you even talking about?"

"...I think you need to come with me. Get someone to cover as manager, and then get your coat. You need to see this."

"What -"

"Just...trust me. This is something that you need to see."

#

They left the club behind and drove out of the city. Then they left the suburbs behind, and started heading into rural hell. The long, two-lane road stretched out into infinity, and aside from the random farmhouses that they passed, there was nothing else to see but fields and forests. It didn't take long for Tabin to start getting bored, and more than that, suspicious.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Have you ever heard of FI?"

"No."

"Most of us just call it the Institute."

"Haven't heard of that, either."

"Yeah, you're not supposed to. Means that we're doing our jobs right."

"That's not helping. You've still not explained anything."

"Look. We're..." Rodden rubbed the back of his head with his free hand as he kept them on track with the other. "We're the sort of place that the government comes to when they either need to make someone disappear, or turn an enemy into an asset."

"Torture?"

"More like...reconditioning."

"Sounds dark."

"Not really. It turns out more pleasurable than you'd think."

"...I still think you're messing with me."

"Brother, if I was messing with you, it'd be to keep you from thinking of anything stupid on the way here. They're not gentle with the bullshitters, and they're more than willing to make you do what they want. I'm trying to get you a good deal here, so please just...shut up and listen to me."

He was surprised. Rodden had never been that serious before, and he hadn't actually thought that his brother could go down that route. So, instead of responding, he just leaned back and listened. The country road continued to draw them on, with the darker stallion turning them down one of the side-roads some time later. All the while, he continued his explanation.

"FI is one of those businesses that gets a lot of government contracts. Some stuff from rich guys, too, but mostly from the government. It allows our scientists to experiment well beyond the limits of most other companies, and we've come up with a way of dealing with the average person, turning them into exactly what the client needs them to be. We can make them look different, act different, even think different than they used to. By the time that we're done, they want the same thing that we do.

"The average person has no idea what we do, and that's why I never tell anyone that I'm anything other than a cop. They don't need to know where I work, and the only reason I'm telling you, now, is because it involves family."

"Well, I respect the change."

"You'll respect it a lot more when we get there. Trust me. This...this is big."

That was starting to sound more and more like an understatement, and he was getting less and less comfortable with the idea of having his kids involved in this. Sure, Edward and Walter were both adopted. Sure, the dragons were a pain in his ass sometimes, always talking about the clients back at the club as perverts and disrespecting him as a pervert himself. They had girlfriends that they occasionally rubbed in his face, almost like they were proud that they were straight and not like him.

But that didn't mean that they didn't have good sides. It didn't mean that they didn't offer him some money when they were running short, or that they didn't come together through the harder times when they were all feeling the squeeze. It didn't mean that they didn't share laughs and good times at basketball games or when they were all stuck at home watching TV.

They were his kids. And Rodden would need a damn good reason to get them involved.

Finally, they took one last turn. They'd been driving through the forest for the last hour or so, and with this last turn, they came upon something that should have been impossible.

A huge structure, one that went almost ten feet in the air, loomed over them. It was mostly green with black stone that rose up the sides in supports, and it was walled with an electrified fence that went all the way around it. The trees had been cut in a twenty-foot line around the fence itself, and a moat had been dug to fill the space.

"The hell is this place?" he muttered.

"This is the local branch of FI. There's one in or outside of every major city in the country," Rodden said as they drove up to a talk box just on their side of the moat. "Now, quiet."

"Identify yourself," the box said as soon as the window rolled down.

"Agent Rodden Makir, with guest Tabin Makir. Here to sign a deal."

"...Proceed," the box said after letting out a high pitched whir. The bridge extended, the gates opened, and they drove in.

Tabin was in a bit of a daze as his brother drove them up to the steps leading to the front door. They both got out, a valet took the car and drove off, and he was led up the steps.

"FI? What does it stand for, anyway?"

"Well, that's where things get a bit weird for outsiders."

"What does it stand for, little brother?"

"...It stands for Fetish Institute."

"Fetish -"

The front door opened, and they were immediately greeted with an official-looking zebra. He stood ramrod straight, his mane was groomed backwards and held flat against his neck with some gel, and...

And he was completely naked, save for a collar around his neck and a black bump on his forehead.

Tabin's eyes went wide even as his internal businessman was already assessing the stranger for how good he'd be at the club. Good muscles across the core, but with a slender body that implied more of a femboy look. Wider hips, the sort that were good at swaying, and a thick black sheath that suggested that the zebra got on more with girth than with anything lengthy.

He was still staring when Rodden presented a badge.

"Agent Rodden Makir. This is my brother and guest. I'm here to show him the lab, and to explain Operation Underworld Expansion."

"Understood, sir. However, if you would allow me to register him?"

"Sure."

"Sir, would you describe yourself as a bottom or a top?" the zebra asked him.

"Uh, what? Top, I guess."

"Be certain, sir."

"...I'm a top."

"Then we're using the leash."

From nowhere, it seemed, the zebra pulled out a leash, offering him the looped end that would normally go around someone's wrist. Tabin looked at it. At first, it seemed to be made of leather, but the more that he stared at it, the more he realized that it was completely synthetic, the sort of thing that would normally be made in a lab. The grip, too, was not made of leather, but rather a series of gel imprints that were covered in a leather paint.

"What the hell is this thing?"

"...I'm surprised you noticed," the zebra said.

"Tabin's smarter than he looks," Rodden explained.

"Shut up. That isn't a leash. What the hell is all that gel stuff?"

"Just take it so we can keep going."

"...Fine. But you owe me a lot of answers here, little brother."

He took the leash, and as soon as he did, he got a shock that went right up his arm. His fingers clenched, pulling the gel-leather tighter to his palm, and he felt something zap from his fingers right into his skull. He grunted, biting his lips, twisting his head from side to side as he struggled to let go.

However, by the time that the shock faded, the leash no longer bothered him. He looked down at it, and he felt the strangest urge to click the other end of the leash onto the zebra in front of him. He picked it up, flicking the little metal connector a few times, then slowly shook his head as he realized what was going through his mind.

"What the hell did you just do?"

"The leash opens the door to fantasies left locked by society," the zebra said. "To enter any FI branch, you must be open to different experiences."

"This better be fucking reversable..."

"If need be."

"Yeah, um, let's not talk about that," Rodden said, pulling him along before he could ask what the hell that meant. "Let's go down to the lab."

"Down? Not up?"

"Trust me. The stuff you need to see is downstairs."

#

It turned out that the leash was the least of the surprises that waited for him in the building. Aside from the fact that the branch of the Fetish Institute went as far underground as it went above ground, there were experiments going on that were downright insane as far as he understood the laws of science, not to mention a few that were utterly impossible.

They were on sub-level 4, looking down in various conditioning and operation rooms where people were being altered. One of them had an otter being put under sedation, various injections gradually forcing the mustelid's chest to rise into new breasts, his hips widening into thicker, rounder sets, his cock growing longer and harder and staying that way. Another one had a vixen that was growing more flat-chested, her ass tighter, her pussy replaced with a cock and her balls forced to grow to the size of tanuki spheres.

"As you can see, we can alter people greatly," Rodden said as they passed one room where a mouse was being turned into a wolf. "Through various nanite breakthroughs, we can accomplish transformative work that leaves everything else in the dust. We can make anyone into anything else, to the point where their old life might as well have never existed."

"This...this feels impossible."

"It's very possible."

"And you want to do this to my sons? Your nephews?"

"It's less want and more...need."

"Just to go after Vadir? No. No, wait," Tabin said, holding up his hand and pressing the other one to his head. "You called it...this operation. You called it 'Underworld Expansion.' You're not after Vadir to take him down..."

"...You really are smarter than you look."

"You want to bring him here. Turn him into one of your little...whatever you call these changed people. You want him to be your rat, bringing other bosses in. You'd control even more of the underground, spreading your agents everywhere."

"You know, you figure things out faster than you should."

Rodden pulled him into a side room, and Tabin allowed himself to be dragged in. His head was spinning, his world tipped over. He didn't even know what to think anymore; so many things that had been impossible had just been proven eminently possible.

Stranger still, the leash that he'd been given still left him with weird feelings. More than once, he had seen someone down on a table, getting changed, being warped, and he had had...feelings...thoughts...fantasies that he had never acknowledged before. It was like he had been forced to expose himself to them, to feel something different.

Like that otter, the one that was going halfway between male and female. He had imagined that one being pushed further, being made into a horse-worshiping slut, someone that had an addiction to his species that couldn't be broken. He imagined 'her' being forced to kneel before him, to wrap her tits around his cock and -

He shook his head. He worked in a sex club, and he enjoyed it. But he had never, ever imagined taking things that far before today. The leash...something about that had done something to his head, and he wasn't sure that he liked it.

As he clenched his hand a bit tighter around the leash, his brother sat down across from him at the table in the side room. They both took a deep breath, then let it out.

"May I go first?" Rodden asked.

"Sure."

"I've been working here for a few years now. You're probably going through a lot of different...things...in your head right now. When you first sign up, they give you either a leash or a collar, and it opens your mind. It makes you acknowledge things that you didn't think about before. It makes things...okay...that weren't always okay before."

"That's fucked up."

"It's what makes it so we can work here," his brother said, shrugging. "Like right now. I want you to listen to what I say, and - without judgment - just see what happens, okay?"

"What are you going to tell me?"

"Something about the boys."

"..."

"Just...listen, okay? If nothing happens, I'll drop it, and you don't have to think about it ever again. But if something does, then you genuinely think about the possibilities here."

"...Fine."

"Alright." Rodden took a deep breath, then looked him right in the eye. "Think about Edward and Walter finally learning to respect stallions."

As soon as his brother said that, Tabin did just that...in the most lewd possible way. He imagined his sons, black-scaled Edward and white-scaled Walter, sitting down in front of him and looking up past his cock, staring at him with worship.

"Imagine them learning their place as proper sons to a real father."

Again, his imagination jumped in, feeding him a mental image of Walter slamming his ass back on an equine cock, breaking himself on it, while Edward was under him and licking at his balls, serving them, worshiping them, loving them.

"Imagine them showing you the proper respect that you deserve, learning their place in the strip club, and then keeping up that work at home. Real sons for a real dad."

The thought of his boys dancing on poles in the middle of his strip club was something that he had never imagined before, but the idea of it now...of seeing them up there...of training them how to shake their scaly asses, how to put their bodies to work, how to put the inferior dragons in their place before a superior equine...

He grunted, his cock dropping from its sheath and thrusting up into the front of his pants, throbbing with life and oozing pre-cum already. He shook his head, pressing his hand to his forehead to try and slow down the images, but they kept coming...and with each successive fantasy, it felt less and less 'wrong,' and more and more what he was due as their father after so long.

"Nnngh...what...what the fuck..."

"I told you. It makes it more acceptable."

"This is fucking cheating."

"But you want it, don't you?"

"...Ugh..."

"I can smell it, Tabin. You're hard as a rock."

"Doesn't mean this is fucking...Nnngh..."

Yeah, he was hard as a rock, and he was still imagining the disrespectful dragons finally learning a lesson. They had been getting a free ride for a long time, and it was time for them to finally start earning their way, one way, or another.

Tabin rubbed his head, grumbling under his breath as his cock continued to throb, begging for the chance to go for this. His hand clenched around the leash, but despite knowing that it was the cause of all these thoughts, he couldn't just throw it away. He had to hold onto it, to keep it close, to try and...do something, he supposed.

He sighed, shaking his head.

"There's no way around this, is there?"

"Well, the alternative was to bring you here, let you see it, let you say no, and then wipe your memory."

"And then do it anyway."

"...Kinda, yeah, though without you getting as many benefits."

"...What do I get?" Tabin asked.

"It's not so hard to imagine now, is it?"

"They're still my kids. I'm interested, but...what do I get for letting you use them?"

"Besides all those fantasies?"

"Besides that."

"Well, how does getting the Hot Herd back in the black and staying there for six months sound?"

"...It's not a bad offer."

"A year?"

"You have that sort of budget?"

"We get millionaires begging for the weirdest shit you can imagine, Tabin. We can afford just about anything. And you could get even more, if you're willing to let us start modifying other workers you have there, use the Hot Herd as a base for some of Vadir's meetings after we change him."

"..."

"Do we have a deal?"

"Yeah..." Tabin rubbed his head. "I guess we do."

"Awesome. Bring the boys in tomorrow, and we'll get started."

"I can't believe I'm doing this."

"I can. It was just a matter of time before you snapped with the way that they treated you, brother. This just makes it happen faster."

Tabin wasn't sure that he liked that as a concept, but he knew that there wasn't much that he could do about it. He was bound and determined to see that his boys were safe, but now that he had had images of them doing...that...in his mind...

Well, they were still a family. Maybe this would make them a better one. At the very least, he'd have the boys trained to be properly respectful to their betters. Dragons should never believe that they were better than equines.

After all...equines were bigger.

"Show me to the car?"

"I'll drive you home. I imagine you got a lot to think about."

"A lot to plan, at least..."

The End